Who to Watch at #ACLFest 2013

If you saw our original digital relevance rankings for the 2013 Austin City Limits Music Festival lineup, you’d know that we’re not only serious audiophiles, but we love to geek-out on predictive analytics too. I suppose that’s one of the benefits of working for a S2aaS firm here in the live music capital of the world. Since our original ranking was run shortly after the ACL lineup release in May, we have seen quite a shakeup in the index.

At W2O, we believe that an individual or brand’s digital relevance is nothing more than word-of-mouth chatter translated into bits and bytes. Applying this model to the ACL lineup, we think we can predict buzz-worthy acts by monitoring their growth in online engagement. The bands I’ve listed below may not necessarily have the highest relevance scores, but they have enjoyed tremendous growth since May. This could be due to a number of factors including record releases, summer tours and festival performances, or maybe even tastemaker endorsements. Though it’s not a perfect science yet, we’d be surprised if there weren’t a few breakout stars in our list. Of the movers-and-shakers, here are my top 5 must-see’s:

1. Typhoon

2. JD McPherson

3. Wild Nothing

4. Wild Belle

5. Dana Falconberry

Check out our Spotify playlist and in case you missed it the first time, have some fun with the original W2O Ranks infographic below. You can play videos, engage with the artists, and share with your friends all from within the image itself. Hope to see you at Zilker Park!